In 1985, with feminism still at its height, U.S. sociologist Lenore Weitzman published a book, The Divorce Revolution, in which she claimed to have analyzed a sample of Los Angeles-area divorced individuals in the 1970s, and found that the living standard of the men increased by an average of 42% after their divorce, while the women’s living standard decreased by an average of 73%. Her methodology was flawed. Since then, more rigorous peer-reviewed studies have proven her conclusions false — she later admitted it herself — and that in fact both sexes are worse off after divorce.

Nevertheless, “facts” such as those supplied by Weitzman were used to justify the 1997 Canadian Federal Child Support Guidelines. Allegedly designed solely to support the best interests of children, the Guidelines were in fact largely concerned with righting purported gender wrongs. As a result, untold numbers of non-custodial parents, mostly fathers, have been paying an unfair, often financially crippling share of their income to custodial parents.

Analysis of the Guidelines’ failure to respect the overarching principles of the Divorce Act — notably the tenet that child support should be based on parents’ “ability to contribute” — is the thrust of a new report, An assessment of Federal Child Support Guidelines, authored for the Fraser Institute by Nippissing University professor of economics, Chris Sarlo. The scope of the study is confined to situations in which the children of a non-custodial parent under the age of majority live at least 60% of the time with the custodial parent.

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The Guidelines’ history began in 1990, when a Family Law Committee was mandated to “study child support in Canada upon family breakdown in the context of the actual costs of raising children.” By 1995, it was clear that issues such as the feminization of poverty and income redistribution were dominating the agenda.

The formula for calculating child-support payments that was finally arrived at was 40/30 — meaning that a second adult represents 40% cost to a household, and a child 30%. These unrealistically high numbers were lifted from Statistics Canada data in the sole context of low-income measures. There was no targeted research study or science behind a universal 40/30 formula (nor did Statistics Canada ever suggest there was). Yet these numbers became the basis for billions of dollars in court-ordered payments every year.

Sarlo begins by asking: “What is the cost of a child?” His answer is that throughout the significant economic literature on this theme, there is “no single correct cost,” because measurement approaches vary. (In 1993, Sarlo says, the justice department used the numbers 25% and 13%, respectively, for the household cost associated with a second adult and a child, but later moved their numbers up.)

Sarlo argues that non-custodial parents in Canada often overpay by many thousands of dollars — money for which no mechanism exists to ensure it is spent on the children

He also notes that the Guidelines ignore government benefits to low and middle class families, as well as the costs to the non-custodial parent of adequately housing and hosting children during “access” times. Sarlo argues that non-custodial parents in Canada often overpay by many thousands of dollars — money for which no mechanism exists to ensure it is spent on the children — and so the custodial parent can reap a net profit. (The exception is Quebec, which has its own, more enlightened system.)

The Guidelines’ aim “to approximate, as closely as possible, the spending on the children that occurred in the pre-separation family.” But this is a flawed approach: Since expenditures on children in intact families vary with the family fortunes, there is no good reason for the state to dictate fixed expenditures. (In fact, expenditures can be appealed upward by the custodial parent. Section 7 of the Guidelines allows extra amounts to be tacked on to the 40/30 formula for “extraordinary” expenses — but does not permit downward adjustment by the non-custodial parent.)

The second issue was the well-documented deference paid to openly misandric feminist “consultants” on the Guidelines

Two issues raised by Sarlo caught my particular attention. The first is that the Guidelines continually refer to children as a cost, i.e. as a burden, never as a value or a benefit. If they were acknowledged as the benefit they are (what is more valuable to human beings than their children?) then, in terms of time spent with children, “the cost-benefit trade-off relating to custody and support changes dramatically.” Once you add that in, it could be clearly seen that the custodial parent is reaping the majority of benefits. But that is apparently an inconvenient truth it suited the law’s framers to ignore.

The second issue was the well-documented deference paid to openly misandric feminist “consultants” on the Guidelines. From a 1991 symposium organized by then-Justice minister Kim Campbell, virtually all of whose recommendations were accepted by the department of justice, one document states: “Even when men are not violent, it should not be assumed that continued contact with the father is positive. The primary custodial parent should decide.” And the following non-binding policy resolution was passed: The justice department “would henceforth represent only feminist legal arguments in any future constitutional cases and would consult with feminists on any future appointments to the judiciary.”

Bad economic policies have social consequences. As Sarlo notes in his conclusion, the Guidelines promote discord and litigation. They act as a net wealth transfer to women at middle and upper class levels, and thereby provide an incentive for women to divorce. And their ability to trump pre-nuptial contracts in favour of the custodial parent discourages marriage and procreation at the margins.

Sarlo is not the first credible academic to draw attention to the harms these badly-conceived Guidelines continue to inflict on Canadian families. Let us hope the government finally takes action so that he can be the last.

In recent days, the National Post has brought forward two sides of the current debate on Bill C-560, An Act to amend the Divorce Act (equal parenting), set for second reading in the House of Commons today.

Although the two articles, by Barbara Kay (“After a divorce, equal parenting rights should be the norm,” March 19) and Tasha Kheiriddin (“Equal shared parenting laws don’t put kids first,” March 20) appear at first glance to present diametrically opposed positions, each expresses valid concerns in regard to the importance of maintaining parent-child relationships, ensuring continuity and stability in children’s lives, and containing parental conflict. The question is whether any one legal formula can be crafted to take on board all of these concerns.

The problem with Canada’s current “best interests of the child” approach, as codified in the Divorce Act, is that it relies on a discretionary method of determining children’s interests, in which judges have unfettered latitude in an area of child development and family dynamics in which they have little or no expertise. Thus, their subjective judgments about children’s needs and interests are variable, inconsistent and unpredictable.

Judges are forced to focus on parental deficits and projective speculation about who will be the better parent, rather than children’s needs for meaningful relationships with both parents, stability and continuity in their routines and relationships, and being shielded from parental conflict and family violence. The current practice of the judiciary undermines rather than supports parents in the fulfillment of their parenting responsibilities: One parent is simply removed as a primary caregiver of children when parents cannot agree on parenting arrangements.

There is no basis in either law or psychology for choosing between two perfectly adequate parents who are in conflict over parenting arrangements. We support and encourage shared parenting in families where parents are living together, to the point where this has become the typical arrangement in contemporary family life; and there is no reason why such arrangements should not be encouraged and protected when parents live apart.

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There are numerous reasons, as Ms. Kheiriddin enumerates, why we should take a cautious approach to a “carte-blanche” equal parenting presumption, most importantly concerns related to exposing children to family violence situations, and preserving continuity of relationships where one parent has traditionally assumed primary responsibility for children’s care and upbringing. However, a rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting is not incompatible with a rebuttable presumption against shared parenting in family violence situations. And equal parenting as a presumption is meant to be applied to the majority of families where parents have already shared child care responsibilities when living together; maintaining existing bonds where one parent has been the sole caregiver may override the equal parent presumption.

Yet the importance of children maintaining meaningful and equal relationships with both parents, an arrangement that best shields children from ongoing conflict, cannot be overstated. The devastating effects of father and mother absence in the lives of children is widely documented. There are now over 30 large-scale studies over the past decade that demonstrate significantly better outcomes for children and parents in shared parenting arrangements.

Shared parenting is, not surprisingly, the stated preference of parents and children themselves

This includes shared parenting of infants and very young children. A consensus of 110 divorce scholars, in the current issue of the APA journal Psychology, Public Policy and Law, conclude unequivocally that “in normal circumstances, the evidence supports shared residential arrangements for children under four years of age whose parents live apart from each other … Further, the research indicates that because infants develop attachment relationships with both of their parents, there is a danger of disturbing one of those relationships by designating one parent as primary and limiting the infant’s time with the other parent. Policies and parenting plans should encourage and maximize the chances that infants will be raised by two adequate and involved parents.”

Shared parenting is, not surprisingly, also the stated preference of parents and children themselves. Research from jurisdictions that have implemented a shared parenting presumption, including Sweden, Belgium and Australia, are highly encouraging.

The current adversarial system in family law is unsustainable. It is our responsibility to set aside polarized positions and work collaboratively toward supporting children and families during difficult times of family transition.

National Post

Edward Kruk is Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, specializing in child and family policy.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/edward-kruk-equal-shared-parenting-best-for-parents-best-for-children/feed/0stdpark.jpgToday's letters: Lots of jobs in the West for millennialshttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-lots-of-jobs-in-the-west-for-millennials
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-lots-of-jobs-in-the-west-for-millennials#commentsThu, 17 Oct 2013 05:38:25 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=132643

Memo to John Moore and Matt Gurney; turn back a few pages in your own newspaper. I couldn’t help but notice the juxtaposition of these two columns by Messrs. Moore and Gurney and the reality out here on the West Coast. I believe it is a complex combination of generational differences, experiences, and attitudes that result in the situation we have at any point in time, including today.

To wit, while we have “home-grown millennials” working for free in Toronto, excellent high-paid trades jobs here on the West Coast go begging, potentially to be filled by Irish millennials; think experience and attitude vs. their generation. In my day, many Boomers weren’t hesitant to pack a bag or two and head to where the jobs were. And unlike the Irish of today, we only needed to cross a country, rather than an ocean. Entrenched as they are, maybe Messrs. Moore and Gurney are the entitled ones; entitled to their opinions, but playing the blame game.

Scott Hoffman, North Vancouver (via Ontario and Alberta).

Matt Gurney’s resentment should be reserved not for all Boomers but for the execrable “teachers” among my generation who brainwashed the millennials in the evils of capitalism, the virtues of Big Government, and the need to kill our economy to save our climate.

Having given over so much power of indoctrination to a leftist elite, I fully admit and regret that my generation — the successor to our nation’s greatest — was too “neglectful, lazy and stupid” to homeschool its children.

Gary McGregor, Ladner, B.C.

Warm-mongers no match for Mark Steyn

I certainly don’t envy anyone who deliberately engages the great Mark Steyn in a battle of wits, but I confess a particular delight in watching Penn State University’s Michael Mann repeatedly put his ‘hockey stick’ in his mouth in the futile attempt to make his scientific manipulations fit the narrative of catastrophic global warming, er, climate change. The day will come, God willing, when Canadians of good conscience will bestow their gratitude upon Mr. Steyn and Ezra Levant for preserving the rights of all to free speech, regardless of how irritating it is to the self-aggrandizing Mr. Mann or his warm-monger in spirit, David Suzuki.

Milan Mijatovic, Windsor, Ont.

What an honest and stunning column by Mark Steyn. Basically it’s OK to publicly criticize unless one goes against the high priests of climate change, or happen to challenge something to do with Islam or is not on side with a proposal brought forth by gay activists. There is far too much litigation going on across this country for people who apparently have had their feelings hurt. I’m a practising Catholic. That religion, along with Christianity in general, is mocked on a daily basis, but I have no desire to bring such people to court about it.

Steve Flanagan, Ottawa.

Unfair family laws hurt our whole society

If a payor (father in most cases) misses support payments due to hardship or misfortune, there are significant consequences imposed by the state. However, should a custodial parent withhold court-ordered access, the other parent lacks any meaningful or immediate recourse in enforcing the child’s right to the access. The police and CAS refuse any involvement in such matters.

Therefore, the only recourse available is to bring the matter back to court where the judges try to “work through” the problem rather than enforce their court orders and impose a consequence. Meanwhile by the time the access parent ends up back in court, due to the complexities of the preparation of a contempt motion, months have passed and the issue is not as meaningful or pressing to the judge.

Canadians need to apply pressure to their MPs to put family law reform front and centre on the national agenda for debate in Parliament.

Gordon Akum, Toronto.

The government may not be responding to our tragic family court system, but rest assured, society is busy compensating for the toxic negativity, false accusations and denied access to fathers. We see endless video games, eating disorders, addictions of all kinds, youth gangs that double as family, celebrity and bling culture that act as role models to kids. Or worse, sexting, online bullying, cutting, anxiety, depression, drugs, jail or suicide. Didn’t this demise in our culture begin over the last 30 years — when fathers began disappearing?

A lack of equal shared parenting manifests itself in countless, more complex and deeper ways and all the forced support payments in the world just won’t fix it.

Paul Coulombe, Toronto.

A solution to ‘vanishing Jews’

Letter-writer Ian Liberman, refers to the “ritual Jewish atheist” who still goes to synagogue because of the traditions, but who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Yet, it is this disconnect between one’s personal beliefs and the words of the traditional liturgy that drives many cultural/secular Jews away from congregational life, leading inevitably to assimilation.

For these Jews who still seek to share Jewish traditions in a communal setting, but want to express their beliefs with integrity, there is a solution: Humanistic Judaism. This newest branch of Judaism meets the needs of many modern-thinking Jews and intermarried families, as well, keeping them connected to the Jewish people. Perhaps, it will even help ensure that the “vanishing Jews” won’t be vanishing quite as quickly.

Sandi Horwitz, Toronto.

Former Nazi killed Christians as well as Jews

Your article quotes Rev. Robert Gahl of Rome’s Pontifical Holy Cross University as saying that “[the] decision to refuse [Nazi war criminal Erich] Priebke a church funeral was …done to take into account the outpouring of emotion … particularly in Rome’s Jewish community.”

The fact is that the great majority of his victims in the Ardeatine Caves massacre were Christians, including at least one priest.

T.R. Simon, Thornhill, Ont.

What Post readers would do with his body

The final disposal of convicted Nazi Erich Priebke does pose a problem. An obvious solution would have been to leave him curbside on a garbage pick-up day. However, I suspect no self-respecting dump would have accepted him.

Frank Glazier, Toronto.

I would have put his body in a body bag and flown it over the spot were the Americans dumped Osama bin Laden in the sea, and let him be eaten by the same fishes, so as not to contaminate any more sea animals.

Arthur Rubinoff, Toronto.

I know what I would have done with this monster’s body; put it in a sack and dumped it in the sea.

Tom Singer, Burlington, Ont.

There was a very simple solution to the problem of disposing of Major Erich Priebke’s remains. We should have disposed of them in the same way one gets rid of used toilet paper. First cremate the body and then flush the ashes down a handy toilet. Problem solved.

Raymond Gork, Toronto.

Alice Munro’s stories just seem so true

Like letter-writer Mindy Alter, I don’t go seeking out works by Alice Munro; I always find them a bit of a slog, simply because they are so much like real life, just as complicated and full of painful contradictions.

The other day another paper printed The Beggar Maid in its entirety. This short story had the impact of a novella, and then some. As a fellow writer, I am humbled by the level of maturity in Munro’s work, and agree with Cynthia Ozick’s assessment of her as a truly “terrifying writer.” It’s been said of American novelist Bernard Malamud that anything he wrote had the feeling of being true. Ms. Munro has a similar gift.

Ron Charach, Toronto.

Actions speak louder than words

If Iran is sincere in wanting a peaceful diplomatic solution and gain the trust of Western powers, it should show by their actions. Actions speak louder than words. Until there is clear evidence that there is a sincere shift of policy, strict sanctions should not be lifted. Negotiations had been going on since 2003 with stalling tactics and buying time as the Iranians move closer and closer to developing a nuclear bomb. The West must be careful and wise in dealing with President Hassan Rouhani, a man who would harbour evil intentions against Israel.

No one in government can use ignorance as an excuse for tolerating Canada’s dysfunctional legal system: Several recent reports have laid the problem bare.

Last April, the federal government released a special-committee report, “Meaningful Change for Family Justice: Beyond Wise Words,” which stated: “Canadians do not have adequate access to family justice.” In August, the Canadian Bar Association released its 50-page “Envisioning Equal Justice” report, describing access to justice as “abysmal.”

Now we have a new report, “Access to Justice: a Roadmap for Change,” the outcome of a project initiated in 2008 by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. The roadmap envisages better dispute-resolution options, more legal-aid funding, plus triage toward appropriate services and other tools for efficiency to help deliver speedier, more tailored service.

We know that family law accounts for 35% of all civil cases; that four of 10 Ontario family law disputes remain unresolved after three years; and that about 50% of family-law litigants represent themselves in court. And yet the Family Justice Working Group’s Report admits, “We lack an empirical understanding of what happens to family cases after they enter the justice system …. how many cases settle, when or why they settle, or after what cost and on what basis they resolve.”

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None of the reports examine the most measurable outputs of Canadian family courts: child support, custody and access orders.

The numbers show that the system is unfair to men. Women are primary or equal breadwinners in many families, and about one in three fathers is a primary caregiver. And yet, among the cases surveyed by Statistics Canada in its report “Interjurisdictional cases of spousal and child support, 2010-11,” 96% of support payors were men. Moreover, according to a 2011 Department of Justice publication, “Sharing Custody — When Parents Separate: Further Findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth,” only 5.2% of sole custody is granted to fathers.

No province or territory has a department dedicated to ensuring that non-custodial parents (mostly men) have proper access to their children

The bias manifests itself in other ways, too. Government agencies in 13 Canadian provinces and territories dedicate themselves to collecting child support (often with draconian enforcement mechanisms). But no province or territory has a department dedicated to ensuring that non-custodial parents (mostly men) have proper access to their children.

Given this, I don’t believe reform can be accomplished merely by tinkering at the edges, or grafting new services and procedures onto a bad family court system.

Mediation — which all the reports recommend more of — only works where there is no advantage in an adversarial approach to either side. But since women know that their chances in family court are good, many have an interest in escalating the case to full-blown litigation.

The solution is a default presumption of equal shared parenting (rebuttable where there is demonstrable abuse). This was the recommendation put forward 15 years ago by the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Child Custody and Access, whose exhaustively researched report promptly was routed to a political oubliette where, shamefully, it still languishes.

The only losers would be lawyers

Children typically want to continue loving both their parents, which requires equal or near-equal physical time with both. Numerous credible studies conclude that this fairest of paradigms meets the best interests of the child, while being equitable to both parents. Influential ideologues may prefer mother-friendly courts, but polls show overwhelming, gender-neutral public support for an equal-parenting default. The only losers would be lawyers.

A default of shared parenting would diminish false allegations of abuse, an all too common strategy for gaining sole custody; and it would ensure the child’s continuing positive engagement with grandparents and other extended family members, who so often are tragically denied access to children they love by custody “winners.”

Divorce itself changed to “no-fault” decades ago. By what logic do post-separation parenting rights yet remain fault-based? All these fancy reports are treating the branches of a sick family-court tree, when the blight is in the tree’s petrified roots.

National Post

bkay@videotron.ca

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-real-family-law-reform-must-start-with-shared-parenting/feed/0stdCNSPhoto-Proudfoot-Parenting-Backlash.jpgMatt Gurney: An obese father’s loss of his children should alarm us allhttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/matt-gurney-an-obese-fathers-loss-of-his-children-should-alarm-us-all
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/matt-gurney-an-obese-fathers-loss-of-his-children-should-alarm-us-all#commentsFri, 22 Jun 2012 16:45:13 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=82719

A man in Ottawa found out this week that his two sons, aged four and six, will be given up for adoption. He has not seen his sons in a year, and is estranged from his mentally troubled ex-wife, who had custody of the children but lost them after a nervous breakdown. They have spent years in foster care.

The father has certainly had some troubles of his own. He has a history of angry outbursts, and took anger management courses. He was a long-term marijuana addict (though now clean) and even operated a grow op. And, as has been widely reported, he is also severely obese. He currently weighs 380 lbs, down from 525 lbs.

His obesity and fitness were a key part of the ruling, a copy of which was obtained by the National Post, that he was unfit to be a father. Indeed, the court recognized that the father had cleaned up his act and achieved stability in his personal life, and that he loved his children and showed no signs of ever having been abusive to his children. It also noted, however, that, “(The father’s) weight loss regime is itself a full-time job. So is parenting two high-needs children. One will inevitably have to give ground to the other.”

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It’s difficult to assess how much bearing the father’s weight had on the ruling. If the father, for example, didn’t have past behavioural issues and if the court didn’t find he continued to have problems with anger and limited family support, perhaps this would be different. But if taken at face value, it seems that the court determined that, in addition to the other admitted problems, the father simply couldn’t care for his children, given his own health issues and the need for him to focus on his own care.

There was another case in Ontario recently that, although wildly different in its details, stuck close to a similar theme. Maricyl Palisoc and Charles Wilton, of Mississauga, had to fight to keep their son, born in April, because they both suffer from cerebral palsy. Their baby is healthy, but the local Children’s Aid Society feared that Palisoc and Wilton, who both experience motor control issues and slurred speech, were not able to care for the infant. The Society wanted to remove the baby and place it into the foster-care system. Eventually, the new parents were told they would be allowed to keep their child, but only after demonstrating that they had sufficient professional and family support in their home to satisfy the Society.

Reached by telephone in Winnipeg, Laurie Beachell, national co-ordinator of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, said that while there is no centralized tracking of such incidents, they are not rare. “It’s common that questions are asked about the ability of those with disabilities to raise their children,” Beachell said. “It’s a bigger issue around adoption, where a citizen with a disability might not be chosen to receive a child. But it’s an issue with children born to the disabled, as well.

Though Mr. Beachell did not speak directly to the case of the Ottawa father, or that of the Palisoc and Wilton baby, he did speak generally to the collision between child protection agencies and parents suffering from health problems. “There is a natural desire among child protection agencies to keep families together,” Mr. Beachell said. “But there is also an automatic assumption among many that a disabled person simply cannot raise a child. Depending on what support is available locally, or what help other family members provide, sometimes the protection agencies realize that the parents are doing just fine. Other times, it’s a real struggle to convince them that the child can be looked after.”

Most Canadians will never find themselves in a situation like Ms. Palisoc and Mr. Wilton, who chose to have a child even though they were both disabled from the outset. But, as Mr. Beachell correctly pointed out, none of us are immune from finding ourselves in a situation comparable to the Ottawa father, where a court finds that our own personal medical needs mean we cannot continue to parent children we already have had for years. A parent can be suddenly crippled, perhaps permanently, by accident or disease. “All of us are one slip away from having a court ruling on our fitness to continue being parents, not just become parents,” Mr. Beachell said.

The court’s ruling did indeed look into a variety of factors relating to the father’s petition to have his sons returned to him, and his obesity was just one element. His past issues, concerns about his ability to afford a proper home and a lack of local family support (his only nearby relatives already have four children of their own) were also factors. But it is certainly true that the court did pay particular attention to the man’s health and prospects of future health issues, while considering the father’s ability to keep up with his sons, both of whom have special needs.

The boys may indeed do better with an adoptive family. But it is difficult not to be unnerved by the ruling. While this particular man has a troubled past, there’s every reason to expect that any parent out there, if suddenly faced with a health issue that slowed them down and required a lot of time and energy to deal with, could find themselves fighting to keep their children from being adopted while they also work to regain their health and their independence. Imagine how you’d feel if, heaven forbid, having already lost your health, you then lost your kids and were ordered not to contact them … so that you can focus on your own recovery.

The first radical shake-up of family courts in decades is under way in the U.K. A dramatic list of consequences will befall any breach of court orders that flout court-endorsed arrangements for the care of children of separated parents. Children’s Minister Tim Loughton will announce that the Children Act 19879, which states that the child comes first in law courts, will be rewritten.

Henceforth the preferred option for the courts will be “the presumption that a child’s welfare is likely to furthered through safe involvement with both parents.” That is, in the absence of abuse, equal parenting, exactly the template we have been patiently awaiting in Canada, will be the default for splitting couples. Furthermore, mothers who refuse to permit access to the children may lose their passports, their driving licences or even their freedom of movement if they fail to comply.

This is a happy, but somewhat shocking, development for those in the global Fathers Rights community. For years objective observers in all western countries have hammered away at the double standards imposed in family court under the influence of feminist ideology, but it has been water dripping on a stone. The template has remained stubbornly pro-mother and anti-father. When custody disputes cannot be amicably resolved, courts routinely assign sole custody to mothers. Swift and often draconian penalties attend any failure to pay support by men, including jail time, but women who habitually and arbitrarily deny fathers court-ordered time with their children are rarely even threatened with repercussions, let alone punished. Here in Canada, the attitude of family courts was best summed up in 2003 by then Liberal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon, who said with regard fathers who were denied parenting status, “Men have no rights, only responsibilities.”

Why the sudden reversal in the U.K.? Well, about one in five children from a broken home in Britain loses touch with the non-custodial parent (almost always the father) within three years and never sees them again. The social costs of fatherlessness can no longer be borne. So the dramatic turnaround represents acknowledgement of a truth that has long been apparent to anyone not blinkered by ideology: the absence of fathers in children’s lives is producing very bad social effects that exhaustive research links with fatherlessness: loss of self-esteem, truancy, delinquency, promiscuity, risk of sexual abuse, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, poor intimacy abilities in later life – and many others.

There was once a time – “Mad Men” time – when mothers stayed home and looked after the kids and fathers went out to work. It made sense that courts should privilege mothers as the children’s main caregiver, while fathers bore the financial burden of their care. But those days are gone forever. Parenting roles today are almost equal in intact homes, and there is no reason why they should not be equal in dissolved unions.

A May 12 article in the Wall Street Journal, “Are Dads the New Moms?” examines the changed role of men in the lives of their children. Men are redefining themselves. They are taking their fatherly responsibilities very seriously, whether they are married or not. As the article notes, “The age of dads as full partners in parenting has arrived.”

Research confirms the prevalence of co-parenting. A recent U.S. Census Bureau report finds 32% of fathers with working lives playing the dominant role in child care. Other research finds that it is not the occasional outings or trips to Disneyland that bond children to their fathers, but “fathers’ steady emotional connection that makes the most substantial difference to their children.”

Canada’s own resident expert on custody and the influence of father absence in children’s lives, UBC Professor of sociology, Edward Kruk, has written extensively on the desperate need for children to maintain bonds with both parents after their separation. His findings show that a child’s needs cannot be met by a single parent, however loving. A child must spend at least 40% of his time with a parent to establish and maintain a beneficial attachment. Substantial time spent with both parents is also the only way to reduce or eliminate the nightmare of parental alienation, which is easily nurtured by a vengeful spouse who has near-fulltime control of children.

In his book Fatherless America, David Blankenhorn calls father absence “the most destructive trend of our generation.” A recent British report, Dad and Me, makes the same claim, suggesting that “father deficit” should be targeted as a pubic health issue.

That’s an excellent suggestion. For we are talking about what makes a society healthy – it all begins with happy, confident children – and what makes it sick – unhappy children with low self-esteem. Some pandemics must await a medical vaccine before they can be stopped. Here is a pandemic for which a proven vaccine is sitting on the shelf: a legal presumption of equal parenting after parents separate. Injection of the vaccine will only hurt for a second, and it will help to cure a diversity of social diseases.

Dear Barbara Kay, I love and respect you as a colleague, mother and friend, but on equal shared parenting, we’ll have to agree to disagree. In your column Wednesday, you say that, “It is clear…that almost the only opponents to equal parenting are misandric ideologues and those financially invested in the family court system itself.” Well, I am neither, and I oppose equal shared parenting laws.

Changing the law to create a presumption of equal parenting following divorce will not change reality. Ninety per cent of parents who split up are able to conclude agreements, whether shared parenting or other, outside of court. For the 10% of parents who end up before a judge, this legal presumption risks doing more harm than good to them and their children.

The Oxford researchers found that “there is no empirical evidence showing a clear linear relationship between the amount of shared time and improving outcomes for children.” Children “are more likely to feel positive when shared time arrangements are flexible and child-focused, when their parents get along and when they have input into decisions about the details of their living arrangements.” Unfortunately, “such arrangements are not typically achieved through litigation.”

For this reason, the study notes, much of the research in support of shared parenting is problematic, because it fails to distinguish between outcomes of agreements reached outside of court and those imposed by a judge. The vast majority of shared parenting arrangements are privately negotiated. Parents who reach such agreements are much more likely to respect them, and outcomes are likely to be more positive for their children, which gives the false impression that court-imposed shared custody agreements would produce the same result.

But they don’t. Parents who end up in court cannot agree on how to move forward. To assume that they can effectively parent as equals is absurd. Also false is to assume that equal parenting arrangements, and in particular spending equal time with both parents, is automatically in the children’s best interest in such situations.

The Australian experience suggests that even when the language of equal parenting law specifies equal responsibility, not time, judges tend to equate the two – with the result that court-mandated equal time has increased, even in situations where violence is present. Why? In part because mothers are less likely to report violence, believing that since there is a legal starting point of shared time, there is no point disclosing abuse and running the risk of being branded an “unfriendly parent.”

The Australian studies cited further show that shared care presents risks to children in two other situations: in high parental conflict or at a very young age. In families with high conflict, “children in shared time arrangements were the ones least happy with their parenting arrangements and most likely to want to change them”, with 43% wanting more time with their mothers, compared to 7-21% of children in other arrangements. And “[R]egardless of socio-economic background, parenting or inter-parental cooperation, shared overnight care of children under four years of age had an independent and deleterious impact.”

What to draw from these findings? Every case should be evaluated on its individual merits, in the best interests of the child, and not approached with any assumptions, including that of “parents’ rights”. “The more crucial project is to identify ways to assist separated parents to think carefully about arrangements that will best serve their children’s changing needs, and to put those above their own views.”

Indeed, I do agree with Mr. Kruk on one point: it is time to drop the “rights discourse” in favour of the language of responsibilities, which include caregiving, decision-making, financial support and moral guidance. But we must also recognize that parents cannot necessarily equally divide all these tasks, especially when they are at each other’s throats. Rather than start from a legal presumption of shared parenting, judges should eschew one-size-fits-all solutions and lay aside preconceptions about both mothers and fathers when deciding family cases. As for our new majority government, it should leave the law alone.

Shania Twain recently published a memoir detailing her anguish at her ex-husband’s affair with her best friend. In the end, Shania found happiness with the friend’s betrayed husband, by her account a straight-arrow guy, a terrific father to his own daughter and a much-admired step-father to her sons.

She writes, “What attracted me to Fred was his selflessness. He was going through the same agony as I was — maybe even worse, because as a father, he would have to battle his soon-to-be ex for the right to see his own daughter. At least that was something I never had to face.”

Reflect on Shania’s words a moment, and perhaps you will be struck, as I was, by this statement’s lack of critical introspection or even indignation.

Why is it that Shania accepts with such fatalism that the custody of her daughter will never be at issue, whereas this selfless man will have to “battle” for access to his child? Because that is the way things still are in family courts in the West, and even celebrities with the clout to arouse public outrage have absorbed the received wisdom that if one parent resists shared parenting for any reason whatsoever — it is usually the mother, and the reasons can be trivial or non-existent — the mother is awarded sole custody. (In reality, nobody is awarded anything through such judgments; on the contrary, one parent and his children have been taken away from each other).

In 1995, 49,000 American men were primary caregivers to their children. In 2010 154,000 men were. Pampers is now using fathers in their diaper ads. Almost 10 years ago, in a sample of 32,000 parents, Health Canada found that working fathers and mothers spend virtually equal time on child care.

So gender convergence is the rule for non-divorced parents, and equal parenting is now the rule for divorces that don’t go to trial. Why is it not the presumptive norm for those that do go to trial, after which mothers get sole custody nine out of 10 times?

It is clear to any disinterested observer who immerses himself in the subject that almost the only opponents to equal parenting are misandric ideologues and those financially invested in the family court system itself, which would see a drastic reduction in revenue from the professional gold mine all-or-nothing custody battles represent.

Reliable surveys tell us that over 70% of Canadians want a presumption of shared or equal parenting in law (in the absence of abuse). But family courts have not caught up with reality. Many judges are still in thrall to stubborn myths: that men demand custody rights to punish their ex-wives or to avoid child support; that they easily disengage from their children; or that awarding men equal rights represents a “patriarchal backlash” (even though few men ask for sole custody, only shared) and children do just as well with one parent as two. Wrong on all counts.

Edward Kruk, associate professor of social work at the University of British Columbia, has been studying the changing role of fathers and the problems of father absence for 30 years. His latest book, Divorced Fathers: Children’s Needs and Parental Responsibilities, illuminates the tragic toll on fathers first removed from their children’s lives by a biased legal system, and then unsupported by a social services network that is almost wholly indifferent to fathers’ rights and feelings.

According to multiple studies, displaced fathers are overwrought at the loss of contact with their children. They are far more likely to become depressed or unemployed. Worse, suicide rates amongst fathers struggling to maintain a parenting relationship with their children are “epidemic.” Divorced fathers are more than twice as likely to kill themselves as married fathers. But since men tend to suffer in silence, the depth of their despair goes unnoticed.

Kruk calls the crisis of father absence — for both fathers and the children they are torn from — “one of the most significant and powerful trends of this generation.” Children now form primary attachments to both parents. Losing their father’s active participation in their lives is enormously consequential. Trustworthy research demonstrates that children deprived of a meaningful father role are at far greater risk of physical, emotional and psychological damage than those actively parented by their fathers. Children fare better with equal parenting even where there is conflict between the parents; it is only child-directed conflict that hurts children.

Kruk’s findings reveal that ironically, precisely because they have taken on equal responsibility for parenting before divorce, men who lose their parenting role now suffer far more grievously than they used to 20 years ago when he wrote his first book, Divorce and Disengagement. He argues for a paradigm shift, away from a rights-based discourse to a framework of “responsibility to needs,” in which both children’s needs and parental and institutional responsibilities to them would be enumerated.

Kruk rather poignantly asks: “Why are parents with no civil or criminal wrongdoing forced to surrender their responsibility to raise their children?” and “Is the removal of a parent from the life of a child, via legal sole custody, itself a form of parental alienation?” Good questions, especially since equal parenting has been part of the Conservative policybook since the party’s rebirth. What’s the delay? Over to you, Mr. Harper.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-stop-denying-fathers-their-rights/feed/0stdCanadian country singer Twain kisses her husband Thiebaud after unveiling her star on the Walk of Fame in HollywoodToday’s letters: The wealthy have already paid for their health carehttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-the-wealthy-have-already-paid-for-their-health-care
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/todays-letters-the-wealthy-have-already-paid-for-their-health-care#commentsMon, 22 Nov 2010 13:00:24 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=18804

Re: World Has Judged Universal Care Lacking, Bliss Argues, Nov. 19.
Historian Michael Bliss argues that the government should not pay for the health care of the so-called wealthy. I counter that the so-called wealthy already pay for their own health care and that of lower income Canadians through onerous taxation.
Like a lot of Canadians, Mr. Bliss seems to believe tax dollars come from the government. They do not. They come from hard-working Canadians. Nadeem Esmail from the Fraser Institute gets it right. We should be looking at improving efficiency and increasing competition. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is never a good solution.Brenda Sears, Ottawa.

Our courts versus divorced dads

Re: Debtor’s Prison for Dads, Barbara Kay, Nov. 17.
Barbara Kay just doesn’t get it. The problem is not about male vs. female bias. The provincial government’s Family Responsibility Office is no different than Canadian Revenue Agency’s appeal system, or the judicial system in terms of Kafkaesque scenarios. Suicides or other collateral damage related to the legal or social systems are not unique to males. It is the faulty implementation of programs that can indeed be Kafkaesque, but that does not mean the programs have no merit.
Marla Hauer, Thornhill, Ont.

Beatles are still holding out

Re: Beatles Marketing Magic Wanes, Matt Hartley, Nov. 17.
Matt Hartley may be correct when he says that some of the mystery is gone now that the Beatles’ music is available on iTunes.
However, the Beatles still haven’t finished holding out on us. True fans are still waiting for DVD releases of the movie Let it Be (which was released briefly on VHS in the late Seventies) as well as the Beatles cartoon show which ran on TV in the late Sixties, featuring adventures and songs. These are only available as bootlegs.
Until then, we wait.Sheldon Nadal, Toronto.

Campus selection just got easier

Re: Censorship on Campus,editorial, Nov. 18.
My wife and I are extremely fortunate to be blessed with an exceptionally intelligent, highly-motivated 15-year-old who will selecting his university next year. His criteria will no doubt include the university’s propensity to demonstrate, nurture and encourage open-thought. Thanks for helping us eliminate Waterloo, Carleton, Lakehead, Calgary, Memorial, etc., from our list of prospective schools. As for their administrations, about all I can say is, “Your loss, not his.”Nicholas Headon, Lions Bay, B.C.

We need smarter airport security

Re: Man Booted From Airport For Refusing Groin Check, Nov. 16.
Evidently, the new modern airport scanners emit low dose radiation that might concentrate in the skin leading to far higher doses of radiation than we have been led to believe. Further study is needed before these devices become commonplace since the radiation doses they emit could reach levels that can cause cancer.
Better to get groped, some might say. But where is the notion about intelligent security and risk profiling?
As with Israeli air security, we need to know who is getting on our airplanes and employ smart interrogation and screening methods judiciously as opposed to mindless scanning and patting down of children and grandmothers. The use of indiscriminate pat-downs, or forcing all passengers to be subjected to potentially disease-causing radiation is simply not acceptable, is unproductive and leads to a false sense of security. In fact, these intrusions can be seen as yet another victory for terrorists.Howard C. Tenenbaum, Thornhill, Ont.

Why pick on Israel?

Re: Is it Anti-Semitic To Criticize Israel?, letter to the editor, Nov. 17.
Letter-writer K. McIllvray is correct in stating that people should be free to criticize Israel. However, it does raise a question. With all the injustices being perpetrated across the globe and a nation like Iran threatening to annihilate the only democracy in the Middle East, what is it that so motivates someone to select Israel for criticism?Sam Mitnick, Côte Saint-Luc, Que.

Do we value ducks more than babies?

Re: Support Abortion Or Stay Off Campus, Club Told, Nov. 17; Inquiry called into abortion policy in N.B., Nov. 3; Syncrude To Pay $3.2M As Part Of Duck Death Deal, Oct. 23.
Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who has received the Order of Canada, is once again in the spotlight promoting the culture of death. This time by getting the a human rights commission to fight the New Brunswick government over its refusal to pay for his abortion clinics. It’s strange how much power one man can have over our society when one compares his lonely efforts to that of over 15,000 pro-life people who protested in front of Parliament in Ottawa last May over the lack of legal protection for the unborn in Canada.
We are the only “civilized” country with no abortion law but plenty of provincial and federal wildlife laws, which will hand down a $ 3.2-million fine for killing 1,600 oil drenched ducks. However, when 100,000 babies are killed yearly in Canada during abortions, the reaction is not a multimillion dollar fine against those involved.
Our legal and political indifference to human life teaches us that a wild duck deserves more dignity and respect than an unborn baby. However, the majority of Canadians know that is not right. It is now up to our elected leaders to look into the heart of the nation and assess her pain because our selfishness and apathy has lead to widespread extermination of something far more important than our wildlife — our humanity.Andrew Caruk, Kitchener, Ont.

Judicial social tinkering (II)

Re: Long History Of Judicial Social Tinkering, letter to the editor, Nov. 16.
While judicial social tinkering has a suspect past in Canadian jurisprudence, methinks Michael Robinson is overly harsh in tarring the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with this brush over the 1937 Labour Conventions Case (LCC). In that case their Lordships decided, in respect of treaties with foreign powers and pursuant to the division of powers in Sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act, that the federal government could not usurp powers exclusively vested in the provinces.
If the expropriation of AbitibiBowater assets indeed falls within the purview of provincial rights under BNA Section 92, Premier Danny Williams was correct to invoke the protection of the LCC in refusing to be a party to the NAFTA treaty fallout. Similar protection would not appear applicable to Ontario in the unlikely event that its green energy legislation results in a treaty challenge to Canada from abroad.Donald McKay, Calgary.

Knowing is not enough

Re: Don’t Follow Your Dream, Harrison Solow, Nov. 15.
This column articulates how important effort and planning is in personal achievement. Many have the intellect, talent and ability yet few achieve their dreams. Although this is probably a common quality of life down through the centuries, we in this modern world pride ourselves on our high level of education. Obviously knowing is not sufficient for doing.
As a public school trustee ending 10 years of service, I can reflect on hearing many graduation speeches expressing the same message of personal greatness and encouraging the students to go for their dreams. These trite messages are often expressed by individuals with little vision and show an intellectual laziness on their part. Individuals who are “too busy” or who do not care enough to realize the that the graduates (who have been receiving from others for years) are to be taking their place in the world of work and fulfill their duty to society by being productive and contributing members. It was never about them only, it is about building a good life for us all.Don Stephens, Mississauga, Ont.

Ontario’s place in Canada

Re: Fix The Transfer System,James Pearce, Nov. 17.
James Pearce brings to light the provincial transfer exemptions that resource-rich “have” provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland currently enjoy, money that would otherwise be earmarked for the “have-nots” once in Ottawa’s hands. In Ontario, one can make a case that manufacturing is the de facto natural resource, the bread and butter, of the provincial economy. Unlike oil and mining, however, revenue from manufacturing is very much transferable to Ottawa.
I would be interested in knowing the transfer exemption amount in relation to GDP that each province currently enjoys. I’m guessing that Ontario, despite its new found “have-not” status, is still paying more than its fair share in transfer payments to Ottawa. More importantly, I would like to know why the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources is more lucrative for a province than the value-added, R&D and other spin-off benefits that manufacturing offer.B.G. Hines, Toronto.

What makes a ‘good book’

Re: A Good Book, George Jonas, Nov. 17.
I find George Jonas’s comments on what makes a good book quite interesting. He claims to prefer books that make him savour the pages, yet I recall reading a very interesting book by Mr. Jonas, titled Vengeance, which was in fact a “page-turner.”
I believe that some of the best books are those which make the reader eager to know what happens to the characters. After all, this must show that the reader is quite involved in the lives of these characters.Robert Kosalka, Kleinburg, Ont.

York University should apologize

Re: York Threatens Legal Action Over Rabbi’s Accusations, Nov. 18.
How can it be that York University would threaten a rabbi with legal action for alleged defamation of its president? If so, I suspect that the negative optics of such a public relations spectacle would be far more damaging to the university in terms of present and future students — and donors — than any remarks attributed to the rabbi’s email. The most ridiculous claim is that a call to peaceful protest equates to criminally encouraging and provoking the rabbi’s congregants to disturb the peace.
If York University is committed to free speech, perhaps they should apologize to the rabbi for trying to muzzle his opinion.Stephen Sinclair, Richmond Hill, Ont.

Mercury dangers

Re: Prospective Mother Battles A Mercury Mess, Nov. 16.
According to Health Canada, “dental amalgam is the single largest source of mercury exposure for the average Canadian” and not fish consumption.
There are various testing methods to detect mercury levels in the body and each test result indicates different information. Hair analysis indicates levels of organic mercury e.g. from fish (the fish absorb mercury and their bodies convert it into organic mercury which is more toxic). Blood levels show both mercury and organic mercury levels. Urinary mercury levels indicate recent exposure to mercury in addition to mercury stores naturally excreted by the body.
It is important to find a practitioner who is educated in prescribing the various tests, and their interpretation, to best understand how to respond for improved health.Dr. Gary Fortinsky, dentist, Toronto.

Islam attacked Europe first

Re: Islam Always Under Attack In Europe, letter to the editor, Nov. 19.
Letter-writer Rizwan Jabhar needs to read some history. Islam invaded, conquered and enslaved southern Spain, Sicily, Malta, northern Africa, etc., in what can only be recognized as a blood bath. When Spain finally expelled, not annihilated, the Muslim invaders in 1492, it was a defensive act of survival for that nation.
The Christian communities under attack in Iraq and other Muslim countries today were the original inhabitants of those countries, some of the earliest of all Christians and a people of peace. Their ancestors were, like the Spaniards, brutally conquered and subjected by the Islamic invaders.B.R. Hughes, Guelph, Ont.

Ontario’s plan to begin impounding the cars of fathers who fall behind in their child support payments next month has a familiar ring to it. I’ve heard of a very similar story before. The man’s name is Jeff Dolan, and his case should ring alarm bells for any Ontario politician considering linking driving privileges to child support.

Jeff’s story is as depressing as it is worrisome. His wife left him soon after he lost his job when the construction industry in his native Minnesota bottomed out. He moved from job to job, trying to earn enough to meet his child support obligations and pay for needed medical treatment, but with no jobs available, he fell behind in his payments while volunteering at a sexual violence clinic and looking for stable work. He finally landed a good job, one that would allow him to make his payments and also included medical benefits. But then the courts caught up with him and, since he’d fallen behind in his payments, stripped him of his license. A valid driver’s license was a condition of his new job, which he then lost. He then fell further behind, and was jailed. The courts told him he could get out once he had a job. He couldn’t get a job until he restored his ability to drive … and he couldn’t do that from jail.

Jeff was eventually released after completing a 30-day sentence and is reportedly working, keeping his head above water while still battling the courts. But his story offers a cautionary tale — men doing their best to meet all their obligations can very quickly be rendered destitute, then imprisoned, if their circumstances change in the slightest.

The problem is particularly acute in Ontario, warns Newmarket-Aurora MPP Frank Klees. “The Family Responsibility Office (responsible for administering support payments) is a disaster,” Klees told me. “On a weekly basis my constituency office deals with fathers who have lost a job or have taken ill and can’t keep up on their payments. When they reach out of the Family Responsibility Office, they’re kept on hold for two hours, only to be dealt with by a staffer who has no knowledge or experience of their case and is just seeing the file for the first time.”

Related

Klees points out that even setting aside the FRO’s dysfunction, only the courts are capable of issuing an order to the FRO amending the conditions of a father’s support payment obligations, and that can easily take six months, assuming the father can afford the lawyer. The FRO, meanwhile, is tasked with responding automatically to non-payment with escalating punitive measures. So if a father loses his job, even if he immediately applies to the court for an amendment, by the time it can be processed, and even should he receive a favourable judgment, the FRO might have already suspended his license, impounded his car or even imprisoned him.There are two entirely different bureaucracies at work, and the one tasked with punitive measures is far more efficient than the only place that fathers can appeal for help.

“We don’t have a justice system in Ontario, we have a legal system,” Klees said. “And the government is more interested in looking like it’s doing something than actually addressing the issue, so it’s going to add some more regulations onto an already complex situation. The Minister of Transportation needed to make an announcement this week, and this is what they chose. Does it have to do with road safety? Of course not.”

Jeff Dolan’s sad story took place in a distant state, thousands of miles away. But we seem to be importing the worst of that system. For fathers in Ontario today, facing rising costs of living and a weak economy, an inflexible bureaucracy that can destroy their lives faster than they can appeal it is the last thing they need to worry about. Too bad that sticking up for fathers doing their best is the one family issue Premier Dad has decided to wash his hands of.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/matt-gurney-dysfunctional-ontario-bureaucracy-sets-up-fathers-to-fail/feed/0stdDalton McGuintyBarbara Kay: Courts get a new way to discriminate against fathershttp://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-courts-get-a-new-way-to-discriminate-against-fathers
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-courts-get-a-new-way-to-discriminate-against-fathers#commentsTue, 09 Nov 2010 15:40:26 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=17476

GREG WOOD/AFP/Getty Images

“They throw guys in jail for non-support all the time, and when they do, the guys serve the whole 30, 60 or 90-day sentence (the term keeps lengthening), even though cocaine dealers routinely get out of jail after serving half their time.”

Ontario’s Family Responsibility Office, which is responsible for ensuring that custodial parents don’t get stiffed for child support payments by the non-custodial parent, has a lot of power.

Starting Dec. 1, someone (read “father”) in arrears on their support payments can have their car impounded. That’s about the stupidest punishment for non-payment one can imagine, since most people need their cars in order to work. As Lloyd Gorling, a father’s rights activist put it, “How are you going to make support payments if you can’t get to work? If you can’t make support payments, does the government really think you’re going to be taking a taxi every day to work?”

If you’re going for irrational responses to non-payment, why not just throw the guy in jail –– but oh wait, they already do that. They throw guys in jail for non-support all the time, and when they do, the guys serve the whole 30, 60 or 90-day sentence (the term keeps lengthening), even though cocaine dealers routinely get out of jail after serving half their time.

In 2004 an FRO staff member didn’t bother waiting for a court date to review the financial status of an out-of-work truck driver. He just suspended his license because – hey, because he could, you see. But the guy couldn’t pay, because he had no job, you FRO idiot. He had no money to pay with, you FRO moron. He was looking for work, and the FRO decided that the best way to deal with a non-paying parent was to make it impossible to find a job so he could pay the support. Nice going, FRO. His suicide note lamented that he didn’t see any way out of his situation and had lost hope. And did anyone pay for that? Of course not. The FRO is accountable to no one.

Related

Let’s look at the bigger picture, though. What is the guy paying child support for? Yeah yeah, to support his children. But that means they are, you know, sort of his children, right? Not necessarily. The custodial parent, almost always the ex-wife, although supposed to grant agreed-upon access rights to the children’s father, can arbitrarily decide she doesn’t want to allow access, and for any old reason — oh sorry, little Jimmy has a play date, oh sorry little Emma has too much homework, oh sorry, I just don’t want to — can deny the father access. And does she pay for that? No. Oh, she might get a scolding from the judge, but there is no downside for her. No custodial mom has ever spent a night in jail or had her licence suspended for refusing her children’s father legal access to them. If they have, enlighten me. I have never heard of such an outcome.

You want to impose draconian punishments for non-support? Fine. But be rational about them. The arbitrary car-licence suspension is simply stupid. It punishes the children. But reluctance to punish children is the rationale for not jailing mothers who refuse access to fathers. Judges continually say they can’t put the mother in jail, because how would it look for the kids to see their mothers punished? One might ask the same question about their dads, no? Or does nobody care how it is for children to know their dads are in jail because they couldn’t give their mothers money? Rhetorical question. Of course nobody cares how a father’s suffering impacts on children, because only mothers’ suffering has the attention of family courts, police and the FRO.

If I were paying money for child support – and by the way, no custodial parent is obliged to say how she spends the money she gets for the children; she could be using it for spa days and nobody at the FRO would care – I wouldn’t be much encouraged to carry on with it if I never got to see my kids. It would occur to me that the state considers money more important to children than fathering. If the state feels that way, maybe society does too. Kind of an incentive-suppressant for fathers.

This story is about a lot more than car licences or what the appropriate punishment should be for failure to pay child support. Double standards abound in the custody industry. The FRO is a very scary agency characterized by way too much power, and far too little intelligence.

FotoliaFor anyone hoping that longstanding ruptures between Rome and the traditionalist wing of the Catholic church are on the brink of swift resolution, it may turn out that April is indeed the cruelest month.
Sometime in early April, two developments are set to come down the pike, each with implications for relations between the Vatican and so-called “traditionalists”, meaning Catholics attached to the old Latin Mass and who harbor deep reservations about the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).
First, the Vatican’s “Ecclesia Dei” Commission, responsible for relations with the traditionalists, will bring out an instruction concerning implementation of Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 document <em>Summorum Pontificum</em>, which installed the older Mass as an “extraordinary form” of the Latin rite.
Second, what could be the final round of talks will take place between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X, the traditionalist body founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, which broke with Rome in 1988.
As is often the case, both moves will probably be seen in the Vatican as important gestures of outreach, but among some traditionalists they’ll likely be taken as further confirmation that Rome can’t be trusted.
<a href="http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/april-may-be-cruel-month-relations-traditionalists&quot; target="_blank">Read full story</a>
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It’s about divorce, and how ruinously expensive, time-consuming and agony-inducing the legal system is in dealing with it.

Anyone unfortunate enough to have been caught in the horrors of divorce law knows the reality of the system. It takes an unhappy situation and does everything it can to make it worse. It can be hideously costly, mind-bogglingly unfair and callously apathetic to the pursuit of justice. But it’s great for lawyers, because the longer and more bitter a case, the more they can bill for it. If either of the parties is even slightly inclined towards payback, it’s the easiest thing in the world to encourage that bitterness into a drawn-out war of attrition that is disastrous for the client and wonderfully profitable for the law firm.

The Ontario Bar Association is not blind to the defects of the system. This week the association delivered a report to Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley addressing some concerns. And one of its big concerns? Making sure lawyers get paid.

You see, the system can get so expensive, it might ruin a client and threaten his or her ability to pay. Well, we can’t have that, so the bar association has come up with a novel plan: Put a tax on marriage licences, and introduce a provincial lottery to ensure no divorce lawyer has to go without.

Bentley came to the first session, [co-author Tom] Dart recalled, and was “pretty blunt” there wouldn’t be much government funding available, so summit participants would have to come up with “creative” ideas for financing reforms.

Channelling a portion of marriage licence fees to fund divorce services may not conjure up the happiest of images, but similar schemes have been implemented in Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Connecticut, where marriage licence surcharges have been used to fund rape prevention and victim assistance programs.

Being “creative” is something divorce lawyers can do. It’s amazing how long a case can be dragged out, while the unhappy couple sinks deeper into financial ruin. A lottery is just the thing: even after both parties are broke, there would still be a way to squeeze cash out of the case!

Of course, an alternative would be to change the laws and legal practices so they weren’t so skewed towards prolonging and inflaming an already rancorous situation. Reducing the opportunities for confrontation, rather than encouraging and nurturing them, would do a lot of good, both emotionally and financially, for the aggrieved parties.